Chapter 7: Don’t Call Me That

As soon as they got out of the carriage, Edmund quietly took Clea’s hand and headed toward the bedroom.

Clea noticed that reason had disappeared from Edmund’s eyes.

For the first time since their night together, she felt something entertaining.

‘To think the pure Crown Prince would fall into corruption.’

Edmund.

Unlike his appearance, he was truly a pure man.

If there was someone who knew nothing of pleasure and indulgence, it would be him.

But then Clea shook her head.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know – he was restraining himself.

And Clea found it interesting that she was completely breaking down his self-control.

“Your Highness!”

Oberon was calling him from behind.

Clea turned around and met Oberon’s gaze.

He acted like he was trying desperately to hold Edmund back.

While not forgetting to fill his gaze toward Clea with disgust.

While others might have wet themselves at Oberon’s glare, Clea’s smile only grew wider.

She mouthed silently:

‘Making that face doesn’t scare me. Why don’t you smile instead?’

Smile? A smile?

How could anyone smile in such a horrible situation?

Oberon wanted to shout that at Clea if it weren’t in front of his lord.

However, he found it difficult to go against Edmund’s wishes.

Just today, when he thought he would receive praise, he had to hear bitter words for sending away Clea Odoi on his own authority.

He wasn’t ignorant enough not to understand why Edmund was behaving this way.

Moreover, it wasn’t proper for a servant to raise his voice against his lord.

Meanwhile, Clea completely ignored Oberon and turned her attention to Edmund.

When their eyes met, Edmund looked down at Clea and said,

“Being with me like this will ruin your reputation. Have you not thought about that?”

A final question of concern.

She thought all threads of reason were cut, but…

Wondering if there was still a thread remaining, Clea pointed out,

“Not ‘you,’ but ‘Clea.'”

“Is that really important right now…?”

“Clea.”

Since she had abandoned Odoi, her designation was just Clea.

Recalling what happened on the bridge, Edmund hesitated briefly before answering,

“Clea.”

Clea felt pleased when Edmund called her by name.

Others would have snorted and shown their displeasure without hesitation, but he was acting like a shy teenage boy who didn’t know what to do.

Clea found this man amusing, who made her feel content just by looking at him.

She felt cheerful even while thinking this was probably nothing more than mutual entertainment.

Not knowing how much time she had left, she raised the corners of her mouth, ignoring the presence of the mark on the back of her hand.

“What use is reputation? The present is more important to me.”

With those words, Clea linked her arm with Edmund’s.

Edmund was startled for a moment and tried to create distance between them, but Clea held on tighter so he couldn’t escape.

Edmund’s body stiffened.

Finding his reaction cute, Clea reached out and lightly stroked his hair near his ear.

It was a daring act to touch the Crown Prince’s body without permission. There wouldn’t be a single person in the empire who would dare do such a thing.

But for her, who was awaiting death, such things weren’t worth worrying about.

“I’m more curious about Your Highness than such things.”

She became interested in what kind of being he was, what kind of person, what he liked, and so on.

Clea wondered why the Clea in the novel had fallen for someone like Lloyd instead of Edmund and clung to him.

‘If she had clung to Edmund instead, she probably wouldn’t have lived such an unfortunate life.’

He was truly pure.

The type of person who seemed like he wouldn’t even glance at another woman if he had a wife.

Honest and upright, yet not appearing to be easily swayed by others.

But Clea thought.

Even someone like him would be different if that ‘other woman’ was Aria.

‘Because Aria is loved by everyone in this world.’

When that thought crossed her mind, she tasted bitterness, but recognizing she was in front of him, she put on a smile.

However, that wasn’t enough to fool Edmund.

Edmund, who never missed others’ expressions, called her name after seeing her face.

“Clea, I’m curious too.”

“About what?”

“What you’re thinking about while looking at me.”

Edmund pulled Clea’s arm closer to himself.

Finding herself completely embraced, Clea was startled and opened her eyes wide, but then snorted and placed her hand on his cheek.

From then on, Clea’s gaze remained fixed on Edmund.

“Are you afraid I might be thinking about Lloyd?”

“What if I am?”

“My, my. Aren’t we nothing to each other yet?”

“That’s true. For now.”

His response, as if refusing to just take it, seemed cute.

Clea completely erased her previous thoughts.

After all, once she dies, Aria Hersher will take care of the rest.

And there was no reason for her to hold onto him when he could leave at any time.

What difference would it make – sleeping together one day or a few times?

Thinking this way, she hurried her steps.

‘Yes, it’s fine to enjoy it now. Everything of his will eventually be taken by her anyway.’

With these thoughts, the two entered the room and met a burning night.

If before, they weren’t in their right minds due to alcohol, now they were meeting their first night together completely sober.

* * *

Though exhausted, Edmund couldn’t fall asleep.

Perhaps because she had been in the cold for so long, Clea quickly fell asleep after separating from him.

Edmund also wanted to sleep beside her.

But remembering how she had disappeared while he slept, he couldn’t bring himself to do so.

He desperately stayed awake while also delighting in the lingering sensation that hadn’t yet faded.

“At this rate, my neck won’t survive.”

Having moved from the bedroom to his office, he was incredulous at the pain in his neck.

The woman who seemed indifferent to everything on the outside became like a different person in bed, her eyes gleaming.

The way she bit his neck was like a fierce beast.

Edmund could have easily pushed Clea away.

She probably would have fallen away easily with just a slight push.

But he deliberately didn’t.

It was the first time he had lost so much self-control.

Although he found it strange, he also became interested in the person called Clea.

‘A woman who holds no other purpose even when facing me.’

The Crown Prince who was already confirmed to ascend to the Emperor’s position.

People always held some thoughts and emotions in their gaze toward him.

Hostility, goodwill, anger, joy, resentment.

They were truly varied.

Some approached to maintain good relations with him, while others held hostility to keep him in check.

Wherever he went, such gazes followed Edmund.

He was already used to it, having been followed by such gazes since he was very young.

Even at the recent banquet, he received the same gazes as usual.

But Clea was different.

‘What was in her gaze when she looked at me?’

The emotion he could read in her eyes that day was very unfamiliar. It was something that didn’t exist among what he had encountered until now.

That stirred his interest.

Edmund somewhat impulsively approached her, who had no connection to him except for the academy.

And he accepted her proposition right there.

Even looking back now, it was difficult to distinguish whether it was sympathy, curiosity, or desire.

“Your Highness, you must not get close to her.”

While he was thinking about her, someone roughly opened his office door without permission and entered.

Edmund frowned at this sudden intruder who had completely broken his reverie.

“You keep making that argument.”

“This is not empty talk. People from the Odoi family were spread around that bridge. They must have been plotting something.”

“Are you saying they were waiting there knowing I would appear? Talk some sense.”

Edmund thought it didn’t make sense from a logical perspective.

How could they have waited there knowing when he would appear?

Even if they were waiting, it would have been for someone else, and moreover, her words didn’t seem false.

‘She said she abandoned the Odoi family.’

The Clea he had seen in his childhood was somewhat timid.

Though she was sitting in the position of a duke’s daughter that others looked up to, she seemed like she was being chased by something.

Acknowledging his foolish thinking after hearing Edmund’s words, Oberon said something he shouldn’t have in front of him.

“Then perhaps she was there to meet Young Lord Lloyd.”

Edmund’s expression darkened as he recalled the person he had forgotten until now.

Perhaps because it was the middle of the night and dark, or because the distance between them was quite far, Oberon couldn’t read Edmund’s expression.

“There was said to be some commotion at the Odoi ducal residence, after all.”

“Oberon.”

Edmund called out to Oberon.

His voice carried a coldness he had never heard before. Oberon’s body trembled.

“I want to be alone now.”

“I apologize for the discourtesy of visiting so late. But please reconsider once. She…”

“Leave now.”

At this final warning, Oberon left the office.

Left alone, Edmund thought of one person.

That person being Lloyd Persi.